MELAKA, MALACCA AND MERDEKA

We crossed into Malaysia from Singapore on a bus headed for the southern city of Melaka (which we never quite worked how to spell correctly so, for the purposes of this blog, we'll spell it the Malay way). En route we stopped off at a cavernous service station which reminded us of one we'd been to in Venezuela all those months ago, where we placed our order of Nasi Goreng and Singapore Fried Rice. The woman at the counter then barked out our order over a microphone PA system to tell the cooks to prepare our meal.

Melaka is an old colonial city which has been controlled at various times by the Portuguese, Dutch and British. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site with a range of impressive old forts and buildings to match, including the former Dutch Stadthuys and Christ Church which have been restored to their original dark red colour. We spent a happy afternoon wandering the streets and stopped off for a drink where Emma had a cup of Teh Tarik, the local sweet milky tea, and Duncan tried something new, a can of 'grass jelly', a disgusting brown concoction with lumps of brown jelly floating in it. We also did a spot of karaoke at an amusement arcade with a quick rendition of Britney Spears' "Hit me baby one more time", before our money ran out half way through - or perhaps it was the machine protesting at our singing…

After dinner at one of the food markets we bought our tickets for the Sound and Light Show which promised to explain the colonial history of Melaka and the battle for independence and freedom (or Merdeka) from the British. It was in the guide book so we assumed naively that it might be a popular draw for tourists so took our seats early in prime position in the specially built 1000-seater football-style stand that had been built for the permanent show. The clock ticked round to the due start time and we had the whole grandstand to ourselves as not a single other person turned up to see what was a pretty informative if slightly amateurish and dated show. But at least we know what Merdeka means and when it was…31 August 1957.

We didn't really give ourselves enough time to see everything the city has to offer, partly as we spent most of the morning dealing with our annoying tenants, and partly because we wanted to press on north and get our first taste of the Asian jungle. First, though, we had to have breakfast and, demonstrating how diverse and multi-cultural Malaysia is, the first place we found was an Indian coffee shop where we ordered a couple of dosai or pancakes served with chicken and vegetable sauces. Very tasty and certainly not our normal breakfast fare.